WINSTON-SALEM –
Two-time Tony Award-winning
choreographer Bill T. Jones is the 2013
Lucia Chase Fellow at the University of
North Carolina School of the Arts
(UNCSA) School of Dance. The recent
Kennedy Center honoree will be on campus
Jan. 27 to give a lecture and conduct an
open rehearsal for dancers of his work
D
Man in the Waters, which will be
presented as part of UNCSA’s Winter
Dance concert, Feb. 21-24 at the Stevens
Center.

Jones won a Tony Award for Best
Choreography in 2010 for the critically
acclaimed
FELA!, which he conceived, wrote,
choreographed and directed. He also won
a Tony for Best Choreography in 2007 for
Spring Awakening, which garnered an
Obie Award in its 2006 off-Broadway run.
He was honored by the Kennedy Center for
the Performing Arts in 2010.

“Our students and our faculty have long
been inspired by the work of Bill T.
Jones, and the opportunity to work with
him here on our campus is exciting,”
said Dean of Dance Susan Jaffe. “Anytime
you can be in the presence of genius, it
fuels your passion for dance.”

The Lucia Chase Endowed Fellowship for
Dance was established in 1988 by UNCSA
Chancellor Emeritus Alex C. Ewing as a
memorial to his mother, principal dancer
with and longtime artistic director of
American Ballet Theatre. The fellowship
provides funding for a professional
dancer to serve as guest instructor in
the School of Dance. Previous Lucia
Chase Fellows have included Agnes de
Mille, Jacques d’Amboise, Irina Baronova,
Margot Fonteyn, Arthur Mitchell, Pearl
Primus, Twyla Tharp and Jose Manuel
Carreño.

“These are icons of the dance world,”
Jaffe said. “Countless numbers of UNCSA
dance alumni and current students have
been impacted by their experience with
Lucia Chase Fellows.”

Jones is a multi-talented artist,
choreographer, dancer, theatre director
and writer whose honors include a 1994
MacArthur Genius Award, induction into
the American Academy of Arts & Sciences,
and a Lucille Lortel Award for the
off-Broadway production of
The Seven. Since 2010 he has been
executive artistic director of New York
Live Arts, a unique artist-led,
producing/presenting/touring arts
organization that was formed by a merger
of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance
Company and Dance Theater Workshop.

Jones’ athletic
D
Man in the Waters premiered in 1989
at the Joyce Theatre in New York, and
was broadcast on the Emmy-winning
documentary FREE TO DANCE in 2001. It
will be performed by contemporary dance
students as part of the
Winter Dance concert at 8 p.m. Feb.
21-23 and at 2 p.m. Feb. 24. Also on
the program are George Balanchine’s
La Source, a world premiere by
School of Dance alumna Emery LeCrone,
and a special presentation from the
Forsythe Project in which former
Forysthe dancer Douglas Becker leads a
repertory exploration referencing his
many years in the creative process with
William Forsythe.(For information, please visit
http://www.uncsaevents.com/events_detail.php?g=755e3c9dfeba.)

Bill T. Jones
studied classical ballet and modern
dance at the State University of New
York (SUNY) at Binghamton. After living
in Amsterdam, he returned to SUNY, where
he became co-founder of the American
Dance Asylum in 1973. In 1982 he formed
the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance
Company (then called Bill T. Jones/Arnie
Zane & Company) with his late partner,
Arnie Zane.

He has created more than 140 works for
his own company in addition to
commissioned works for modern and ballet
companies including Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater, Boston Ballet, Lyon Opera
Ballet, and Berlin Opera Ballet. In
1995, Jones directed and performed in
Degga, a collaborative work with
Toni Morrison and Max Roach at Alice
Tully Hall, commissioned by Lincoln
Center’s Serious Fun Festival. His
collaboration with Jessye Norman,
How! Do! We! Do!, premiered at New
York's City Center in 1999.

He has choreographed for Houston Grand
Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera,
Munich Biennale, New York City Opera and
Boston Lyric Opera.

Jones has been recognized with the
Jacob's Pillow Dance Award; the Wexner
Prize; the Samuel H. Scripps American
Dance Festival Award for Lifetime
Achievement; the Dorothy and Lillian
Gish Prize; the Dance Magazine Award;
the Harlem Renaissance Award; and the
Dorothy B. Chandler Performing Arts
Award. He has received multiple New York
dance and performance Bessie Awards for
his works
The Table Project,
The Breathing Show, and
D-Man in the Waters, and for his
company's groundbreaking season at the
Joyce Theater in 1986. In 1980, 1981 and
1982, Jones received choreographic
fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts, and in 1979 he was granted
the Creative Artists Public Service
Award in Choreography. In 2000, the
Dance Heritage Coalition named him "an
irreplaceable dance treasure."

Jones was profiled on
NBC Nightly News and
The Today Show in 2010 and was a
guest on the
Colbert Report in 2009. He was
featured in HBO’s 2010 documentary
series
Masterclass, which follows notable
artists as they mentor aspiring young
artists. In 2009, he appeared on one of
the final episodes of
Bill Moyers Journal on PBS,
discussing his Lincoln suite of works.
Additional television credits include
Bill T. Jones: Still/Here with Bill
Moyers for PBS in 1997, and
Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The
Promised Land (1992) and
Fever Swamp (1985) for the PBS
series
Great Performances.

He was one of 22 prominent black
Americans featured in the HBO
documentary
THE BLACK LIST in 2008. In 2004,
ARTE France and Bel Air Media produced
BILL T. JONES SOLOS, highlighting three
of his iconic solos from a cinematic
point of view.

He has received honorary doctorates from
Yale University, Art Institute of
Chicago, Bard College, Columbia College,
Skidmore College, The Juilliard School
and Swarthmore College, and a
distinguished alumni award from
SUNY-Binghamton.

As America’s first state-supported arts
school, the University of North Carolina
School of the Arts is a unique
stand-alone public university of arts
conservatories. With a high school
component, UNCSA is a degree-granting
institution that trains young people of
talent in music, dance, drama,
filmmaking, and design and production.
Established by the N.C. General Assembly
in 1963, the School of the Arts opened
in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and
Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of
the University of North Carolina system
in 1972. For more information, visit
www.uncsa.edu.